La mia geisha

This film is at the top of my "guilty pleasures" list of films; not a great film but one for which I have great affection. I first saw it in the mid 60's when I was a teenager at a Saturday afternoon matinée. Then, I had no idea what the title meant. The word geisha was totally new to me. At that age I would go to a Saturday matinée and watch whatever was offered, and as I watched this film I found myself falling in love with Shirley MacLaine, the music of Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" and Japan. I credit it with starting my abiding interest in and fascination with the culture of Japan and for my making several visits to that country as an adult. I watch it once a year between Christmas and New Year on my now worn VHS tape version. I have been looking forward, in vain, to it's release on DVD which for some reason has yet to happen and to seeing it once again in all its wide screen charm. p.s. Finally, Paramount has condescended to release this film in DVD format and it looks and sounds great.

"my geisha" is charming. suspend belief a bit, and one realises how good an actress shirley maclaine is and how convincingly she becomes a geisha.

the movie is fluff. but the attempt to parallel the plot to the libretto of "madama butterfly" is clever and almost successful. edward g.robinson as sharpless; maclaine as pinkerton, and montand as butterfly... it is a very literate attempt to use the sub-plot as the driver for the main plot.

there are moments when one is reminded of a doris day-rock hudson frolic - expected in a comedy from 1962. but there's also a real "edge" that comes from the characters being a little less than saccharine. as has been pointed out, the cinematography is quite sharp. so there is an air of substance to the production, and quality is evident.

in the end, though, one just should enjoy it.

"My Geisha" never quite manages its transitions smoothly, but they were trying something quite difficult for the period: a comedy with some genuine depth of feeling. They get there in the end, thanks to MacLaine and Montand, but there are a couple of stops along the way. You've read the setup by now, and know that Bob Cummings is playing her leading man, while her husband (Montand) is the Director of his first serious film without his wife's fame to help him succeed. He Has to Do It On His Own. It takes both his wife and his producer much too long to take this seriously, and thereby endanger both marriage and friendship. Because they think he'll come around, or appreciate the joke of her disguise, we do too...until he finally recognizes her. At that point, Montand stops being a supporting player and moves into full partnership. We believe him, and ache for him. We don't believe that "Bob Moore" is his best friend. Cummings' "arrested adolescent" is unfunny and unappealing, and he's given way too much screen time. Edward G Robinson is a pleasure throughout, but a lot of the gags - mixed bathing, sumo wrestling - are fairly condescending and forced in spite of the obvious admiration for Japan and its culture. The scenery is stunning, but there's sadness too in seeing it now. Nobody shoots beautiful films about Japan IN Japan any more; "Last Samurai" was largely shot in New Zealand, "Memoirs of a Geisha" in California. And the undercurrents - the Parker/MacLaine marriage and its eventual dissolution - sometimes haunt the script. Franz Waxman's peppy score keeps preventing us from really believing we're watching a shoot about "Madame Butterfly". When the Puccini music finally arrives, it's marvelous. And when Shirley lip-synchs the aria, she breathes like a singer. Shirley MacLaine went on to prove over and over again that she was more than a kooky comedienne...but at the time this film was made, it was a case of Art imitating Life. It's uneven, but parts of it are definitely worth seeing.

Shirley MacLaine is such fun to watch. She dives into her character body and soul. She leads you on and you follow her. It would be foolish not to. We don't question anything because we're in love with her. This movie is a real rarity.I suspect that Steve Parker, Shirley's husband then and producer of "My Geisha" actually directed this. He chose Jack Cardiff as the director, the great Cardiff one of the top cinematographers of all time -- See "Black Narcisus" for instance -- But, as we all know, a cinematographer is used to work with directors, cinematographers must be artists with a very different kind of ego. What a spectacular way for Steve Parker to direct his movie by proxy. Better plan, impossible. The film is a comedy slash morality tale with a stunning Cardiff like look and a delicious performance by MacLaine. Yves Montand plays her husband. His English is tentative at best but he is unquestionably charming in a clumsy written part. Edward G Robinson is another plus. His character's delight is utterly contagious. Many of my contemporaries are to jaded to enjoy this film, but I've tried it on kids and it works, let me tell you, they love it. Not to mention my parents. So there you are, I guarantee you'll love "My Geisha" if you're young, if you're old or if you're me.

Not a great film by any means---the dialogue tends to the wooden, and the plot to the improbable---but, somehow, it is fun to watch. As the movie goes on, Montand and MacLaine seem to warm to their roles, and some of Montand's introspective musings about love, career, and marriage, in the unwitting presence of his wife, are genuinely touching. MacLaine looks quite stunning made up as a geisha, and the location scenes of Japan in 1961 (Kyoto, Tokyo, Miyajima, Hakone) are alone worth the price of admission. Japanese culture is treated with fond respect, not simply with amusement or exotic interest. The speech by the ancient geisha "master" about the idealization of womanhood strays a bit into embarrassing hyperbole, but this is the exception, not the rule, in the film.